The queue

Emily Writes Weekly

I’ve been thinking a lot about how overwhelmed and stressed people seem as we begin this New Year. I totally understand those feelings. But I thought I’d share something that made me hopeful -

My appointment was at 11am. When I saw the queue, packed with people who seemed far less able to wait than I - I figured, I’d just wait. I had nowhere really to be. It’s the school holidays. My husband was in the car with the kids but he could just head home and I’d take the bus. It already seemed like it would take too long to leave the kids, it was hot and stuffy in the car.

So I joined the queue. I called my husband and sent him home.

In front of me, were pregnant women, women with new babies, elderly people. Behind me - the same. So many people.

Humanity is not just us as a collective, it’s something much more hopeful.

We appeal to each other’s humanity. Humanity is our best state. It’s the way we’re meant to be as well as who we are. It’s the kindest thing we can say about humans, about us. When we implore people to be human we ask that they are patient, kind, open-minded, generous. That they see us. That we see them. Maybe it’s that we ask people not to be inhuman. When we say someone is being inhuman or not human we are suggesting that they’re callous, cold, that they show no mercy, no grace, no empathy.

The queue was human. It was humanity. There was patience, not just for those busying themselves inside the make-shift clinic we were waiting to enter. There was patience for each other. The mood was light. I would almost say it was kind. There was a buzz of gentle gratitude. Strangers talked in the queue. I spoke to an 82 year-old woman about our families in Australia. We both have family members fighting Covid 19. And here we were, agreeing that a long wait wasn’t that much of anything at all when we thought of what our neighbours across the sea were facing.

We talked about how lucky we were - to be able to be vaccinated. For it to be free. For the queue to be long, but not really long. It meant everyone was doing their part - so how could you really complain? But we hoped people who left the queue because they didn’t have the privilege of time that we did - would come back, would book online, would ensure they were still vaccinated.

I watched the mama in front of me kiss her baby. It was such a joy to watch a baby delight in their mother. It was a perfect sign of all that we have to look forward to in our futures. New life, new love, new growth - more happiness, more peace.

They seemed perfectly in sync, this mother and her baby. She seemed to just know her little one’s hunger was starting. She seemed to effortlessly feed standing but we got her a chair. It was raining just a little. But we were under cover.

Another in the queue was glad she brought her book.

We made it into the clinic, just 45 minutes later. We stood and sat, according to need - as more people entered, we shifted “would you like a seat?”

A man played peekaboo with his mask. A baby giggled. An elder tilted her head and beamed. A nurse called names, smiled as she directed us all.

Inside the booth, it turned out I knew the vaccinator. She and her partner had driven me around Nelson years ago. I’d visited my aunty’s grave on the hillside. We bonded, said we’d stay in touch but somehow never did.

And here we were.

Afterward, I sat in a lazyboy next to others, freshly boosted - and I felt so….soothed. The whole experience had somehow been a balm. After so many, many months of newspapers, websites, television painted with the worst of humanity, with so much doom, it was like cool water - putting out some fire inside.

Everyone tells you - there’s so few of them, don’t worry about it. And it’s true, we are not actually divided. But my inbox makes me feel like there’s so much hate. And, really, I haven’t been out that much. I’ve been protecting my little whānau.

This trip out for a booster - restored something in me.

We are human. We are broken and whole. Hurt and healing. We are thankful and afraid and brave and worried and we are kind.

I am so grateful to be here. Even when it feels so overwhelming - I’m grateful to be here. Grateful to be able to do my best by others. To be called on to do what I can. To be part of this human mess we are in and to try to stay human within it.

We are waiting and hoping. But we are waiting and hoping together.